Would Removing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles Imperil US Survival?

The following piece, written by Peter Huessy, first appeared on Warrior Maven, a Military Content Group member website.

Since 1956, the United States has faced at least three critical deterrent challenges. The first was the vulnerability of our bomber weapons storage facilities to a Soviet-feared satellite strike. The second was the massive Soviet build-up of heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), where the US feared a massive Soviet strike against our highly accurate but vulnerable ICBMs. And the third is the current lack of theater nuclear forces to check a growing Russian (and Chinese) adoption of a “escalate to win” strategy, to use coercive nuclear strikes to win conventional conflicts. All in the context of a new strategic environment where the US and its allies will face twin nuclear-armed peer enemies.

The first window was closed by the initial acquisition of highly survivable US ICBM and submarine-based ballistic missile (SLBM) forces between 1958-62. The second window emerged in the 1970s and was closed with the ninety percent cut in allowable nuclear forces under the START series of arms control, the end of the Soviet Union empire and particularly the Warsaw Pact, the promise of missile defense, and the US modernizing its conventional and nuclear forces to provide the strength for the US to wage an integrated deterrent campaign against Moscow.

As noted, the third window has now opened with the Russian strategy of threatening nuclear force as part of the conventional war in Ukraine, a strategy initiated by former Russian President Yeltsin in his 1999 edict calling for the development of highly accurate, low-yield battlefield nuclear weapons. China’s breathtaking growth in nuclear weapons and adoption of a similar strategy leaves the US facing two nuclear-armed peer enemies for the first time in its history.

Whether Russia or China would actually be reckless enough to use theater and low-yield nuclear weapons is unknown. However, the capability is there in huge numbers, weapons that also have no arms control limits.

The Posture Commission report, released late last year, recognized this third window of vulnerability and recommended dozens of new US initiatives to close the gap.

However, hoping to sideline the Posture Commission findings, a number of disarmament groups have once again argued for unilaterally eliminating the US land-based ICBM force, much as they previously campaigned to kill ICBMs during previous periods of US strategic vulnerability.

It was nearly 70 years ago that Curtis LeMay, the AF Chief of Staff, told Congress the American strategic bomber deterrent was vulnerable to a Soviet strike that could eliminate the US ability to retaliate and thus undermine deterrence. He argued the bomber force relied on gravity bombs regularly stored at a mere 14 military reservations. General LeMay feared the Soviets could eliminate the US nuclear deterrent in a surprise attack on just those storage areas. As a result, defense planners broached the idea of developing a complimentary nuclear deterrent of land and sea-based missiles.

The First Window: Securing the Bomber Force (1950s)

In October 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first satellite ever launched. Now the US might face a future series of Soviet satellites continually orbiting the earth and without notice strike the Air Force weapons storage areas, eliminating US nuclear capabilities.

In response and in a remarkable achievement, the Navy’s Rear Admiral Roderick Middleton developed by 1958 the Polaris missile, eventually deployed on 61 submarines. And Air Force General Bernard Schriever and Colonel Edward Hall helped develop the Minuteman ICBM that was first deployed in October 1962.

President Kennedy would credit these two developments as giving the United States the necessary deterrent firepower to stop the Soviets from using nuclear weapons in both the Berlin and Cuban missile crisis, proclaiming that “Minuteman was my ace in the hole” in securing the removal of nuclear armed Soviet missiles from Cuba.

The US eventually deployed 1,000 Minuteman missiles in five western and mid-western states in underground silos. One senior Air Force leader explained ICBMs enabled the US a flexible response option, and to avoid what President John Kennedy later described as an “all or nothing posture which would lead to a choice between inglorious retreat or unlimited retaliation.”

AF Chief General Nathan Twining argued instead of targeting the Soviets seeking to destroy their society under a policy of “massive retaliation,” to which President Kennedy was referring, the US could eventually undertake a counter-force strike on Soviet nuclear forces and disarm Moscow instead of destroying the entire country including Soviet cities in what was termed a wrong-headed “counter-value strike.” .

The new Minuteman missiles were also solid fueled, unlike the liquid fueled Titan and Atlas ICBMS/ The Minuteman missiles did not take hours to fuel prior to launch which would leave them vulnerable to a surprise attack. Now, in a crisis the President did not have to alter the US strategic posture to have deterrence at the ready, a highly stabilizing element of the new ICBMs. The solid fueled missiles were also vastly less expensive to build and maintain compared to larger Titan and Atlas missiles, a factor that enabled the USAF to build 1000 such missiles cheaply.

The new strategic Triad was now highly survivable. A general rule of thumb was the submarine force would be one-third on patrol in the Pacific and Atlantic, one-third in transit from the patrol area and the submarine bases, and one-third were at the bases. Those submarines at sea were totally survivable.

The land-based missiles were on alert at nearly 100% and given the initial relative inaccuracy of Soviet missiles, were considered highly survivable.

Taken together the new Triad did the job. General LeMay’s first window of vulnerability was closed.

Today, the United States is acquiring 12 Columbia-class submarines to replace the current 14 Ohio-class submarines. Each will carry 16 Trident missiles and each missile will carry roughly an average of between 5-6 warheads, for a total New START allowed force of roughly 1,090 warheads.

The Sentinel ICBM will replace the 400 Minuteman missiles and their associated launch facilities with no less than 400 missiles. Fifty additional silos are also available for future development.

And upwards of 20 nuclear armed new B-21 strategic bombers will eventually be deployed along with remaining nuclear armed B-52 bombers, all of which could be placed on alert during a crisis, making the bomber force also highly survivable.

Given the US policy of keeping a highly survivable second-strike retaliatory capability to deter other nuclear armed nations from striking the United States, why the new effort by the Arms Control Association to unilaterally eliminate all United States ICBMs?

The history of concern over the vulnerability of the US ICBM force is a long and complicated saga. And it has been at the center of most anti-nuclear campaigns, especially since 1981.

As accuracy of ICBMs improved through improved guidance systems, it became possible—theoretically—for Moscow to target the entire Minuteman ICBM force in its silos. However, in order to credibly hold the Minuteman force in check the Soviets would have to target each silo with two warheads to make sure the silos were destroyed. When the US had 1,000 Minuteman silos, such a Soviet attack would require the use of more than 2,000 warheads, an attack of such magnitude that any US President would have to retaliate with an equally destructive response.

That it of itself was thought to guarantee no Soviet strike would be forthcoming.

The Second Window: Facing the Soviet Missile Buildup (1970s)

Now when US ICBMs first started to be deployed, some military leadership argued for a minimum deployment of only a few hundred nuclear armed missiles in silos on land or deployed on submarines for the purpose of targeting Soviet population centers.

However, instead the US adopted a policy the US Strategic Air Command characterized as “flexible response” that sought to avoid the dead-end choice described by President Kennedy and target instead Soviet military forces and national leadership. That required a very robust force.

Thus, even when the first SALT arms control agreements took place with Moscow, the deals essentially endorsed the planned growth in US and Soviet forces. Over time, the Soviets would come to deploy some 13,000 long range strategic nuclear warheads, the predominate number of their warheads on very accurate missiles such as the SS-18 missile each capable of carrying at least ten warheads. By 1980, the Soviets believed their huge nuclear buildup—given the green light by the SALT I (1972) and the SALT II (1979) arms accords with the United States, would give Moscow a distinct advantage in the global correlation of power.

The US feared Soviets could destroy the entire Minuteman force of 1000 missiles, but still leave Moscow with over 10,000 remaining nuclear bombs with which to hold at risk both the remainder of US nuclear and conventional forces but also US cities. That threat was anticipated as the new MX missile research funds were first put into the Air Force budget in 1974, with the goal of eventually deploying some 200 ten-warhead missiles in a mobile, survivable posture to avoid being taken out by a massive Soviet pre-emptive strike.

The large Soviet led Warsaw Pact tank armies aimed at the Fulda Gap in Western Europe could not be matched tank for tank by the NATO alliance because the United States determined Congress would not support the required large defense budget. Thus, to deter the Soviets from invading central Europe an initial strategy of a massive nuclear response was adopted and then followed with a “flexible response” doctrine that included not just a retaliatory capability of long range strategic nuclear weapons but also the use of up to tens of thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons largely deployed in Europe as well.

With Russia amassing 13,000 long range strategic nuclear weapons while holding additional tens of thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons, an American President might stand down in a crisis fearing that even if the Soviets used all of 2000 warheads to eliminate the most accurate of American nuclear forces—the ICBMs—Moscow would have in reserve tens of thousands of additional warheads with which to burn to the ground American and allied cities

Losing the ICBMs was one thing, but seeing major American cities destroyed was another. Thus, the often-heard deterrent question: would the US protect Berlin, or London or Paris at the risk of losing New York and Los Angeles. Especially at a time when the public support for military spending was falling due to the end of US fighting in Vietnam and the subsequent decade long loss of some 20 nations to the Soviet empire.

The strategic environment developed in the 1970s was referred by President Reagan as a “window of vulnerability.” To remedy the deteriorating strategic posture of the United States, President Reagan’s proposed a “peace through strength” integrated strategy that contained seven elements:

1. Modernize all US nuclear forces especially ICBMs and SLBMs.
2. Turn around the current “hollow” US conventional forces.
3. End the Soviet empire and the Warsaw Pact through a coordinated economic, political and military attack on the centers of Soviet power.
4. Achieve major nuclear arms reductions (formally proposed by the Reagan administration in 1981.
5. Reject both the SALT process of warhead buildups and the foolish nuclear freeze.
6. Drive the deployment of two INF missiles– the Pershing’s and Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM)– in five European NATO allies to counter the Soviets massive SS-20 deployments; and
7. Build a major missile defense capability to undermine Soviet coercive first strike threats.

A modernized nuclear force and missile defense were the most controversial of the President’s proposals. Especially in light of the previous decade long efforts during the 1970’s by Congress to repeatedly delay or cut nuclear force modernization, growing out of a disenchantment of Congress with all things military. No basing mode for the new MXX missile could be agreed upon, the B1 and B2 bombers were repeatedly delayed, as was the Ohio class submarine and associated companion C-4 and D-5 missiles.

On the conventional forces side of the equation, things were not any better. When taking office, Reagan found the US military was in a general state of disrepair, what was characterized as a “hollow military.” A group of military experts toured US military bases at the request of the White House and found a disquieting but general level of disrepair and neglect within our military forces.

While Reagan pushed for nuclear modernization, the disarmament crowd pushed for what was termed a “nuclear freeze” and especially sought the termination of the new land-based MX missile that became known as Peacekeeper.

A nuclear freeze was supported by Moscow. If adopted in 1981, it would have frozen in a posture of US nuclear obsolescence, while freezing in a Soviet force nearly 100% modernized, a status not unlike what the US faces today. The US has not deployed a new nuclear platform since 1997 while Russia has completed approximately 96% of its planned strategic nuclear modernization.

Throughout the past 45 years, the disarmament community has repeatedly sought to eliminate US land-based missiles.

For example, in 1984, all ICBM funds were fenced pending the outcome of the upcoming Presidential election, with an elaborate ten-part Congressional action required to free up the funds. In May 1985, by a vote of 55-45, the Senate unfenced the funding, but only after a 28-27 supportive vote in the House Appropriations Committee that saved the program. By October 1986, the new Peacekeeper was finally deployed, ironically by the date and month promised by the USAF and the Ballistic Missile Office in their first budget request in 1974!

Bu even with the Senate ratification of the INF (1987), the CFE (1989), the START I (1991) and START II (1993) arms treaties, which eventually included a ban on multiple warhead ICBMs and a cut down to 3500 strategic warheads, the disarmament groups still wanted to eliminate ICBMs.

After START I and II, the US kept 400 Minuteman missiles, each a highly unattractive target with only one warhead on each missile, making for the very stable future nuclear force deployment envisioned by President Reagan.

Nonetheless, even with the end of the Cold War, the Soviet empire and Warsaw Pact, the Clinton administration sought in 1994 to eliminate all ICBMs in their nuclear posture review. The draft report reached the US Senate and members of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). Coincidentally, the SASC was in the midst of oversight hearings on the nuclear posture of the United States during which Chairman Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC) asked senior members of the military whether they knew anything about the plans to kill ICBMs and would they support such an effort.

The Chiefs unanimously opposed any such move against ICBMs and this leaking of the administration’s ICBM proposal was enough to eliminate the idea.

Unfortunately, eliminating ICBMs emerged again early in the Bush administration. The Under Secretary of the AF sought to “divest the AF” of the ICBM force, placing in the budget submitted to Congress a fuzzy worded “efficiency proposal” that when subsequently examined would eliminate all operations and maintenance funding for the Minuteman base in North Dakota.

To counter such efforts, North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad secured a law that required the AF to keep no less than 400 ICBMs missiles through at least 2030, which is when the new Sentinel ICBM is planned to be deployed. Additional measures are now law of the land, including the requirement the US maintain no less than 400 ICBM missiles and that no defense funds can be used to reduce the force.

For the more than half century, each of the seven successive Presidential administrations have reviewed America’s nuclear posture and each time has come down squarely on the side of retaining ICBMs, including five major nuclear posture reviews and nearly another twenty revisions.

With the 2002 Moscow Treaty and the 2010 New START agreement, limiting US and Russian deployed systems to 1,700-2,200 and then 1,550 accountable warheads, the second window of vulnerability was firmly closed.

However, there is a saying in Washington that despite the facts, bad ideas never go away. Eliminating ICBMs is now being pushed again by the Arms Control Association and the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction. Despite the dramatic reduction, by nearly 90%, of deployed strategic nuclear weapons in the US arsenal. The disarmers want to unilaterally cut fully another one third of the US nuclear arsenal, despite a now growing Russian arsenal and an even more breathtaking growth in China’s strategic nuclear force which potentially would leave the US with less than 200 long range missiles compared to Russia and China with over one thousand.

The effort underscores the disarmament community’s misunderstanding of history and careless notions about US strategic deterrence. The most recent Congressional vote on the subject was a 310-108 vote against a House amendment to eliminate the Sentinel program. During consideration of the amendment, Congresswoman Liz Cheney stacked up the dozens of major studies over twenty years that examined the ICBM force. The pile of studies stacked 6 feet in all, as the representative piled them on her HASC desk, and as she explained, every one of them concluded the ICBM force was a unique contributor to deterrence and needed to remain in the force with the new GBSD (as it was then called) missiles and associated infrastructure. .

The big worry of the disarmers remains the same. Their concern is that in a crisis each nuclear power will be tempted to go first to use their on alert nuclear forces because if they wait, the other nation could go first and take out the nuclear forces of the other nation before they can be used. This might lead to pressures in a crisis to undertake what former Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman Sam Nunn (D-GA) referenced as “prompt launch.” This issue of stability has often been described also as a “use it or lose it” dilemma.

Bu today, such a fear has nothing to do with the real world. The US nuclear forces are 400 MM missiles on alert and 45 launch control centers; some 4-6 submarines at sea, and 6 additional submarines on two bases in Georgia and Washington; and 60 bombers on 3 bomber bases in North Dakota, Missouri and Louisiana. The US bombers are not on alert or carry weapons on a day-to-day basis—there is concern of the wear and tear on the legacy bomber force if alert rates were significantly increased.

Today, the total force structure the Russians, for example, would have to take out in a first strike consists of roughly distinct 500+ American targets. This estimate does not include US leadership, critical command centers and most US conventional forces. To target all 500+ elements of US power would require Russia to launch close to a thousand nuclear warheads at the United States.

Unlike at the height of the Cold War, such a trike now would require Russia to use roughly two-thirds of its New START accountable strategic nuclear force, but still with a certainty of multiple hundreds American nuclear warheads coming back at Russia.

The US retaliatory strike could be over one thousand warheads if bombers were placed on day-to-day alert, more submarines were at sea, or the US implemented its current hedge and added warheads to both the ICBM and SLBM force. In short, in response to a crisis, an American President would certainly consider an increase of the alert posture of the country thus making possible an even more robust retaliatory strike.

In light of these realities, what purpose would be served for Moscow to make such a reckless Armageddon type decision to just attack US ICBMs, and not the vulnerable submarines and bombers not at sea or on alert? To achieve what aim?

The Third Window: Today’s Dual Threat from Russia and China

When looked at in total, if the United States implemented the hedge to acquire a greater force in response to the projected China buildup, the US could add about another 1,000 warheads to its current strategic long-range force of submarines and ICBMs, making a hypothetical retaliatory strike available to a President in the 1,000-2,000 nuclear warhead range even if the US response waits until it is confirmed that enemy nuclear warheads have struck the United States.

Moscow and China both know this. As does Congress and the US military leadership. That is why for 75 years the US has maintained an ICBM force and no missile anywhere in any country has been launched against the ICBM force.

The late-December 2023 published report of the Posture Commission also supports the Sentinel ICBM force. And while they have recommended that the US could examine making some portion of the ICBM force mobile, as both China and Russia have done with some of their ICBM forces, that is not a current requirement concluded the Commission.

The US has previously tried to deploy a mix of ICBMs. In 1983, a mobile and fixed ICBM force, the Peacekeeper and mobile Small ICBM–were both recommended by the Congressional mandated Scowcroft Commission.

However, with the end of the Cold War and agreement on major warhead reductions in START I and II, the mobile Small ICBM and Peacekeeper Rail Garrison were both terminated in 1991 by President George H. B. Bush, in part due to the projected anticipation of the ban on all multiple warhead ICBMs contained in the START II agreement, although nearly a decade later the Russian Duma unilaterally changed the deal by demanding that the US jettison all our missile defense research and development, which the US Senate subsequently rejected.

ICBM mobility has been the subject of dozens of DoD studies. Previous administrations back to the Nixon administration, had previously tried to find a mobile basing mode for the 10-warhead Peacekeeper, but notably failed to do so because of opposition from the nuclear freeze, disarmament groups, and environmentalists. The US fared no better seeking to deploy a mobile single-warhead SICBM.

For example, in 1980, during a hearing of the SASC, two Democrat senators—Joe Cannon (D-NV) and Wayne Moss (D-UT)—proposed to the committee that their states would be happy to deploy 100 mobile ICBMs just as long as the other 100 needed missiles would be accepted by other states. Needless-to-say, the transparent effort to kick a decision on ICBM modernization down the road again didn’t find any additional state sponsors for deployment.

The reason the 1983 Scowcroft Commission recommended the US deploy the Peacekeeper ICBM in silos and deploy as well the SICBM in a mobile mode was to solve this part of the window of vulnerability in two stages. As Senator Malcolm Wallop said, you cannot make an elephant (a 10 warhead Peacekeeper) a rabbit (a single warhead mobile SICBM) and neither can you make a rabbit an elephant!

The Role of ICBMs in US Deterrence

Given this history, deploying a mobile ICBM has heavy odds against succeeding. Although admittedly adding another layer of deterrence to US nuclear forces.

But ironically, while worrying that fixed ICBMs might trigger an accidental nuclear war, none of the disarmament groups support making ICBMs mobile.

And most importantly, the disarmers really miss the boat by not understanding under what conditions Russia or China might use nuclear weapons against the United States and whether killing all ICBMs removes that dangerous uncertainty.

The most likely use of nuclear weapons is not as part of an invasion of Western Europe by Soviet tank armies or a massive bolt-out-of-the blue strike feared during the Cold War. As the recent Strategic Posture Commission report unanimously concluded, the most likely use of nuclear weapons against the United States is a coercive but limited nuclear strike threats as part of a series of conventional aggressions by Russia or China against US allies.

Such limited and regional strike threats under a Russian and Chinese strategy popularly known as “escalate to win,” would obviously not strike any of the ICBM force in the United States. Most likely at risk would be key military targets in Europe or the Western Pacific or the Middle East critical to the defense the US provides our allies.

Unilaterally removing the US ICBM force from the US nuclear Triad would tip over the stabilizing three-legged Triad stool and do nothing to prevent the use of nuclear weapons.

In fact, an enemy attack (nuclear or conventional) might be more likely. For example, without ICBMs, the US nuclear force structure would be reduced to the following targets: 3 bomber bases, 2 submarine bases, plus whatever number of submarines we have at sea.

Killing ICBMs would reduce the US target set of nuclear forces from over five hundred targets to less than a dozen, or a 98% reduction. Is there a point making it vastly easier for our enemies to attack the United States nuclear deterrent?

Debating the Elimination of ICBMs

If taken as a whole, the US nuclear deterrent is survivable, what is the point of inviting a potentially disarming attack by our adversaries? Remember that in 1950, the US all but invited war by declaring the Republic of Korea as beyond our nation’s defense perimeter. Four months later North Korea invaded. Two million Koreans were killed, and over 35,000 Americans.

Although between one-third to two-thirds of the American nuclear armed submarine fleet is fully survivable at sea, can we place all our future marbles on that one factor? If there is a revolution in undersea warfare and technological development and an adversary finds the oceans transparent the survivability of the SLBM force and thus the US deterrent will come into question.

The bolt out of the blue scenario from the days of the Cold War window of vulnerability would be recreated but with the potential US force structure no more than 2% of the size of the current US arsenal.

Reducing the US nuclear forces to less than a dozen aim points invites cooperative adversaries to hide their intentions, promise a “peaceful rise” and strike when ready to do so.

Eliminating ICBMs would heighten the very risks of nuclear weapon use the disarmament advocates are telling us they are trying to reduce.

Conclusion: Avoiding Dangerous Unilateral Decisions

Although it is obvious a massive nuclear exchange would probably come close to ending civilization as we know it, such a concern doesn’t point to where the disarmers want to go. Like the nuclear freeze rejected half a century ago, once again the disarmament community proposes dangerous unilateral measures that would make the very nuclear war (however limited) they seek to avoid more likely, vitiate the US strategic deterrent and make more unstable an already deteriorating world order.

Peter Huessy is the Senior Nuclear Weapons analyst, Center for Military Modernization. Huessy is also President of Geo-Strategic Analysis, Potomac, Maryland. Huessy has a Masters Degree in International Relations from Columbia University and a BS in East Asian Studies from Yonsel University in Seoul, South Korea.